Matrix like never before

Following several months of blood, sweat and tears, the hard work of the Squiz Labs development team has finally paid off, with their efforts culminating in the release of the highly anticipated Matrix 5.3.

As the fourth release in the 5.X series of Matrix, this expansion sees some very innovative and powerful new features be included alongside the core Matrix offering.

Let’s examine some of these features as well as the benefits they will bring to content authors and website implementers in their day-to-day creation, publishing and management of information and web content.

Content Templates

There’s a lot more to the publishing of web content than the placement of images and text on a white page; and there is only so much a WYSIWYG editor will be able to do for you. Sometimes functionality such as accordion tabs, interactive maps, dynamic charts and social media feeds are required to bring your page to life.

Enter Content Templates, the new content templating mechanism that can be fully customised and adapted to suit any content authoring need. With Content Templates you possess total control over how content is stored, edited, and presented on the front end page.

A tabbed content template, allowing users to create content blocks in tabs with flexibility over how many tabs to create.

Create your own template from scratch or import existing ones from other systems, then apply templates to existing content with just a click of a button.

Inline Comments

Web pages are not always created by a single person; often you have multiple authors contributing content to any one webpage. The problem is that publishing workflows require approvers to have a clear understanding of what they are reviewing and approving.

Thankfully, this kind of content collaboration just got a whole lot easier with the new Inline Commenting feature for the Edit+ WYSIWYG Editor.

Comments and threads can be deleted by the user who created them and existing comments can be edited which will also track the time-stamp of the edit.

Easily and quickly add a comment to any part of the content by highlighting it and clicking the comment button. This starts a comment thread that other users can reply to and engage in a conversation with. Comments can also be resolved and stored for archival purposes.

Git Connector

Matrix 5.3 features a brand new Git Connector that can be integrated with any 3rd-party Git hosting system such as GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket.

Git, a popular version control system for software and web development, enables multiple developers to work on the same piece of code without overwriting each other's changes.

With all this in mind, it’s no wonder Git is a must-use tool for web developers building sites for Squiz Matrix, which is why we've decided to make them work seamlessly together.

The Git File Bridge asset enables you to integrate static file assets from a Git repository directly into the Matrix file system.

When a file is updated and saved in Git, the connector will automatically sync the files over to your Matrix system so that you can instantly see and review the changes within your website environment.

20 More Incredible Features

This is just the tip of the iceberg for 5.3. Other features include a brand new WYSIWYG style picker, a revamped code editor, improved editing and user interfaces, a HPRM8 connector, and a new payment gateway using PayPal’s Braintree system.